


The Other End (What's Left of You That I Don't Have)

by kassidy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Community: spn_au, Community: spn_illuminated, Demons, Episode AU: s04e21 When the Levee Breaks, Episode Related, Fix-It, Gore, Horror, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Non Consensual, Other, Season/Series 04, Violence, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, powers!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassidy/pseuds/kassidy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU wherein Ruby doesn't betray Sam and the Apocalypse is averted. It begins after Sam escapes the panic room in "When the Levee Breaks" during Season Four, picking up immediately after the fight between Sam and Dean at the hotel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other End (What's Left of You That I Don't Have)

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of scenes mirror dialogue from canon. Sam has slight kinetic abilities.  
> My first time doing spn_illuminated. It was wonderful to meet and talk to Vail about the story, and I’m very happy I got to write a piece with her lovely work in mind.

** The Other End  ** prompt art by [](http://vail-kagami.livejournal.com/profile)[**vail_kagami**](http://vail-kagami.livejournal.com/) for [](http://spn-illuminated.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_illuminated**](http://spn-illuminated.livejournal.com/)

[Art Masterpost](http://vail-kagami.livejournal.com/162135.html)

 

He ran out the door of the hotel, blood on his lip from the fight, the same old shit feelings he'd lived with for years and fought against spilling out all over the place—anger, fear just beneath it that Dean was right ( _Sammy, you freak_ ). Shame, twisting and burrowing deeper inside the mess in his head, trying to find a darker place to hide in.  
  
But he couldn't hide what he was doing anymore. No more slipping outside motel rooms after Dean was asleep, no more denials of a lifetime ago, telling himself he could be different, a student-someday-lawyer, a normal guy with friends ( _shapeshifter bait in the end_ ) and the perfect girlfriend ( _burned up on a ceiling_ ). He was never going to be normal. It was all for nothing.  
  
Unless he could kill Lilith. It was that or die. Too late, too far gone for anything else, junked out on demon blood the way he was.  
   
Sam looked out over the hotel grounds. Misty gray fingers reached from the bottom of the clouds toward the ground, the parking lot wet and dark from the off-and-on-rain. Ruby strode toward him from somewhere close by the entrance to the hotel, her dark hair flipping in a wave behind her. She joined Sam, saying nothing. They headed for the ridiculous Caddy Sam had filched that morning from the back of a car lot.  
   
His brother’s voice reverberated in his brain, under his skin, in time with his heart, feeding the anger of the very thing Dean feared he was (knew he was). A monster.  
  
Maybe it was true, even before the demon came and dripped blood in his mouth as a baby, and especially so now that Sam fed the worst of everything in himself with Ruby's blood. It was poison, and it changed him. But the blood meant power. In the end, it didn't matter if a man or a monster killed Lilith and stopped the Apocalypse.  
   
It started raining again, fat drops splatting on his head and against his face. Just as they reached the car, Sam heard someone behind them and turned around fast. A dark-haired woman with glasses followed them, three men beside her, raindrops sinking into the dark of their suits. Sam raised a hand toward them, palm up. All three of the men dropped to the pavement, their limbs rigid, bodies writhing, black clouds of smoke rising from their mouths toward the sky.  
  
Ruby reached for the woman’s arm, wrestled with her for the gun she’d pulled. The woman’s glasses flew off and skittered over the pavement as she turned, cracking Ruby in the face with the butt of the gun. Ruby’s eyes went black, her nose flooding blood over her lips and chin. Sam was mesmerized by the flow.  
  
“Pay attention, Sam,” Ruby yelled. The gun went off.  
   
Something impacted his neck, digging in. It stung. He raised his hand. It was a dart, a trank dart. He cracked a smile, feeling his lip split again. Somehow it was funny, that he’d been shot like an animal on one of those nature shows. _Being relocated._ His legs felt loose, muscles relaxing, threatening to drop him.  
   
Sam bared his teeth and fought the sensation, glaring at the woman who’d fired at him. She was tall, long-haired, red lips and demon eyes grinning at him. He stared at her, imagined his hands around her throat, squeezing until her body went limp.  
   
She dropped the gun, hands flying to her neck, eyes wide and startled. The weapon clattered on the parking lot.  
   
Yes. His fingers tightening around her neck.  
  
Without warning the scene switched in his head. It was Dean. _Dean._ Lying on the hotel floor, face pale and still.  
   
Sam lost his focus, falling to his knees. The demon straightened, rubbing her throat. Sam flung a last, furious thought at her, a mental wrench of hands around her neck. The woman bent over, choking.  
  
He couldn’t hold onto it. Whatever stuff they’d put in the dart spread over his body like paint spilling over a canvas, wiping everything out beneath it. Sam closed his eyes.  
   
*  
   
He woke tied up in the back of a van, feet and hands bound together behind his back. Voices came from up front, music on the radio turned up loud enough to obscure what was being said. The van made a tight left turn. Sam’s body rocked toward where Ruby lay, then settled.  
   
The van’s interior was dark and curtained, Ruby’s face a pale oval against the carpet, mouth slack and eyes closed. He wondered what they’d done to her.  
   
Sam swallowed back bile. Whatever tranquilizer they’d shot him with made him want to throw up, but the last thing he wanted was to lie in his own vomit. Carefully he rolled onto his stomach away from Ruby, feeling the cell phone in his pocket press into his hipbone. He rolled his hips, trying to make the cell inch up out of his pocket, but he got nowhere fast. It was on vibrate, but he was still shocked when it buzzed against his hip.  
   
“Dammit,” he said, startled. The voices up front stopped abruptly. Ruby moaned as if he’d disturbed her. Sam sagged into the carpet and lay still, his hair hanging over his face. Stupid, stupid. But he was still feeling slow from the effects of the drug.  
   
The van swerved and braked suddenly, Sam sliding forward, his head hitting hit the bottom of the seat in front of him. Maybe it was Dean on the phone. He closed his eyes, waiting, seeing Dean’s face again in his mind’s eye.  
   
Sam’s throat tightened. Not Dean. Dean had told him they were done if he walked out. He heard the back doors of the van being flung open. He didn’t look, not yet. _I hope we can make it right when it’s over._  
   
The female demon spoke. “What are you up to?”  
   
He was locked in the back of a van going who knew where, turning into something that scared himself and Dean both. He was glad Dean wasn’t there to see it, but he _missed_ him, no matter how bad things had gotten between them. _Promise you, Dean, if I make it through--if there’s any way, I’ll make it right._  
   
He opened his eyes. She had two demons with her this time. He couldn’t see much behind them—a fence running down by a walkway, a glimpse of road behind them. She crawled inside the van and pushed him roughly onto his side.  
   
“What are you doing back here?” She grabbed a handful of his hair at the top of his head, pulling viciously.  
   
He squinted up at her. “What do you think I can do, tied up like this?”  
   
She smirked, looking his body up and down. “You might be surprised.”  
   
Sam lunged upward, almost managing to butt her in the face. She jerked backward, fingers tight in his hair and nearly tearing it out by the roots in her haste to get out of the van.  
   
Sam looked her over, returning the favor. “So you’re who they sent to come and get me?” His lips thinned and widened then turned down, contemptuous.  
   
Her face flushed. The van doors slammed shut again. He heard footsteps, then doors opening and closing. The van pulled onto the road again. He looked over at Ruby. She hadn’t moved.  
   
Sam closed his eyes and tried not to be sick as the van swayed and bumped over the street.  
   
*  
   
The next time he awakened, he was in a high-ceilinged room. Daylight came in through a corner window, plenty of sky showing through most of it. Tree tops from some distance away showed in the bottom part of the glass. He figured he was on the second, maybe third floor of an older house. There was a dirty old radiator on the opposite wall, off-white color peeling to expose a darker color underneath, the same as the walls. The floor was piled high with trash and who knew what else beneath. The place was obviously abandoned. He and Dean sometimes squatted overnight in places like this, though they tried to find something with floors they could actually see.  
  
Sam was on an old metal cot, spread-eagled, tied with thick ropes around his waist, arms and legs. The metal strips strung over the framework of the cot beneath the mattress made a rattling, tinny sound as he struggled to escape.  
   
“They've got us good, Sam.” Ruby coughed, sounding hoarse. She was across the room in a bed like his, tied in the same manner, though the foldup bed looked roomy for her, whereas his heels hung off the edge.  
   
“Do something,” he said, panting.  
   
She frowned, exasperated. “Sure, I'll just wiggle my magic demon horns, except for oh, I don't have any. You think I wouldn't like to? They've got wards on this room. I can't leave it. Sure you can't break free?”  
   
“I’m trying.” Sam grunted, straining harder. The bed squealed, moving across the floor a couple of inches as he yanked his legs as hard as he could.  
   
“Okay, obviously not working.” Ruby rolled her eyes when fury kept him pulling against the ropes. “Get a grip, Sam. Your go-juice levels are down after putting those demons down in the parking lot. Not like you had any extra to begin with, thanks to your brother.”  
   
They heard noise outside the room and fell silent, listening. Someone climbed the stairs, slow and deliberate. The door to the room creaked open slowly. Lilith stood in the doorway, looking pleased with herself.  
  
“Speak of the devil,” Sam said tightly. Ruby gave him a swift, quelling glance.   
  
“Not quite, Sam.” Lilith smiled. She nodded at Ruby. “And look who else is here. Cat got your tongue?”  
   
Ruby shrugged. Lilith sat down on the edge of Ruby’s cot, patting her arm. She leaned down and spoke into her ear. “What did you hope to accomplish, really?” she asked gently, almost pitying. Ruby tried to lean away. Lilith took the lobe of her ear between her teeth.   
   
Ruby gasped and jerked against the ropes. Lilith began to tug, Ruby frantically canting her head toward Lilith’s mouth to reduce the space widening between them. “You fucking bitch!” she yelled. Lilith pulled inexorably away, grinding her teeth into Ruby’s flesh. Ruby cried out.  
   
Sam pulled against the ropes that held him, the cot rattling and heaving. Lilith’s head hung over Ruby’s, their hair spread out and tangling together. Ruby managed to get a hand into Lilith’s long hair, scrambling at it, yanking as hard as she could. It didn’t stop her. Blood stained Lilith’s bared teeth.  
   
Sam tried to concentrate, fixing Lilith’s face in his mind as she’d been at the motel the last time he saw her. He saw her patting the bed, waiting for him, inviting and smug. He watched her recline. He lowered himself over her body, reached for the knife overhead. Ruby’s demon killing knife. He felt the cool hilt in his grip. He concentrated, pressed the tip of it to her chest and into skin, digging, searching for her heart.  
   
Lilith’s eyes rolled up, blind white. She pushed herself upright, a hand to her chest. Her head cocked inquisitively toward him. A bubble of blood on her chin rolled downward. "Do that again and I'll kill her," she whispered.  
  
"Let her go!”  
  
Lilith watched him, considering. “No." She bent over and bit into Ruby’s ear lobe, pulling at it and gnawing until it was thin, stretching longer. The flesh began to tear. Ruby arched up off the cot and cried out, low and guttural.  
   
Lilith sat up, swallowing. She licked at the bloody wreath ringing her mouth. "You're even stronger than I thought, Sam. Looks like I got you just in time."  
   
“In time for what?" Sam snarled. He yanked at the ropes around his wrists.     
   
"The end. You should be happy. The end is the beginning for you."  
   
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? What do you want?”  
   
Lilith smiled sweetly at him. “I’m right here, you don’t need to shout. I’m sure you figured it out already. If you’re here, I’ve got one less Winchester to worry about when the curtain rises on the final act, right?” She scrubbed her chin with the back of her hand, then licked it. Ruby's eyes were clenched shut, tears tracking down her face. She turned as far away as she could from Lilith, exposing her mutilated ear, the lobe torn away. Blood dripped onto the floor, swallowed up by the garbage.  
  
Lilith stood and glided over to Sam, then knelt. She lowered her head into the area between his neck and shoulder, burrowing into the crook. He whipped his head into hers, crashing them together, trying to crowd her out. She bit him deep into the meat of his shoulder, sawing at it with her blunt teeth. He yelled, thrashing, fighting to get away. Unfolding her body, she squeezed herself onto the cot, pressing into his side, all the while with her upper and lower jaw fastened into his skin, pushing strongly, trying to meet together through the thick hunk of meat in her mouth. He grunted in pain, pulling his shoulder up to press her out of the space but that made it worse, made it throb and tear more—  
   
Her lips quivered against his skin. She murmured something, lush and heady words, obscenities slurred into the blood pouring out of him, utterly meaningless to him but weighty, sinking inside, making him weak and encouraging the flow. Her body settled, snuggling against his side. Lilith bit and sucked at the wound, tearing at it again whenever the flow lessened.  
   
Sam’s hands splayed out. His strength faltered, head rolling to the side. Lilith drank deep.  
   
*  
   
Dean stared out the double windows, books stacked up high on the table below them. His back ached, scraped raw from when Sam knocked him through the divider at the hotel. His throat felt hot and swollen. He didn’t let on. It was humiliating enough that his little brother had somehow managed to beat the hell out of him.  
   
“We’re going after Lilith,” he said, still watching out the window, avoiding Bobby’s look.  
   
“No,” Bobby said from behind him, “first you’re gonna go after Sam.”  
   
Dean turned. “I don’t have time. The world’s about to end, or did you forget that?”  
   
Bobby raised a placating hand. “I know you're pissed. I'm not making apologies for what he's done, but he's your—”  
   
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Blood? He's my blood, is that what you're gonna say?”  
   
Bobby met his look head on. “He's your brother. And he's drowning.”  
   
Dean's shoulders slumped. “Bobby, I tried to help him. He took off. That’s what he does best, ever since he was old enough to run. And I’m tired as hell of chasing him.”  
   
Bobby shook his head impatiently. “Do it anyway. Dean, listen to me—”  
   
Dean stepped closer to where Bobby stood. "I can't make him come back with me when he never wanted it in the first place!"  
   
“He wanted to go to college, Dean. College! Don’t make it something it wasn’t. It was _never_ about leaving you.” Bobby looked wry. “Your Dad, now, that might have been a different story.”  
   
“He wanted to be normal, yeah, I got that loud and clear, same as I got that he and Dad couldn’t even _talk_ to each other by the time he left. But normal means blind and ignorant. Normal doesn’t have the faintest clue about what’s out there. It means people get killed, Bobby, you know that.”  
   
“Sam has a lot more than a clue, Dean, but that stuff’s all in the past. Your brother needs your help and he needs it now, more than he ever has.” Bobby pulled out his cell, staring at it. “He sure as hell ain’t taking nobody else’s help. The Winchester way for sure,” he added, more than a little sarcasm in his tone.  
   
Dean turned and stared out the window again, feeling numb, almost as dead inside as the outdoors looked. “He’s not taking your calls because Ruby’s with him. I can’t help him.”  
   
"Can't or won't?" Bobby asked, sighing loudly when Dean didn't answer. Finally he left the room. Dean sat down on the orange loveseat in the corner, staring blankly at the books balanced on every available surface. Slowly he pulled his phone out of his pocket, running his fingers over it. He and Sam had installed an app last time they updated phones that allowed them to see where the other was located. It was an easy precaution. Too easy not to look.  
   
Apparently Sam was somewhere outside of Maryland.  
   
What the hell was he doing in Maryland? Even if he wanted to go after Sam, Maryland was almost twenty-four hours away. And what could he do even if he reached him?  
   
 _He picked Ruby over me._ He didn’t have any sway over Sam, not anymore. It was all Ruby, all the time. Sam’s drug of choice.  
   
 _I told him he was a monster._ He lowered his head into his hands.  
   
“It’s not too late, Dean. It never is, not when it comes to family.” Bobby's voice was earnest, quiet.  
   
Dean looked up, startled. “You trying to give me a heart attack or what?”  
   
Bobby gave him a ghost of a grin. "Don’t blame me if you can’t hear for nothin’.”  
   
Dean shook his head slowly, looking out the window. “l just don’t know, Bobby.”  
   
“Well, figure it out. We're running out of time, and so is he. Sam's—” Bobby shook his head. "I don't know what's gonna happen to him, but it ain't good." Bobby turned on his heel and walked out of the room again.  
   
Dean’s throat closed up. He clenched the phone in his hand, watching the dot on the screen. He remembered when Sam left for Stanford and all the months leading up to it. Sam's pinched, unhappy face, starved for something Dad and Dean couldn't give him. They`d nearly lost him for good. But even when Sam was gone, Dean had never given up on him coming back.   
   
And then at the hotel he’d turned around and said the very same thing to Sam that his father had said. Dean remembered the tears in Sam’s eyes, the desperation in his face. The way he’d pleaded for Dean to trust him.  
   
 _I’m not Dad._  
   
Dean squeezed his eyes shut. “Cas,” he said, almost before he realized he was going to speak. He looked upward. “You out there?” He waited. “C’mon, Cas! You want me on call for the God squad, you can take a second to listen to me.”  
  
He waited, but Castiel didn’t appear. Finally Dean stood and went to find Bobby to tell him he was leaving. Bobby hugged him, surprising him, then thumped him on the back. “I knew you were made of better stuff than that, son.”  
  
Dean gave him a wry look. "Sure about that?"  
  
"Yeah," Bobby said. "I am."  
  
Dean zipped up his jacket and headed out, down Bobby's drive, past all the old cars piled every which way all over the big grassy lot. He turned toward the gas station and filled up the Impala’s tank, buying a large cup of black coffee while he was at it. He started the car again and cracked the window, taking his first sip. It was good, hot on his tongue.  
   
He started out for Maryland and Sam as the sun set, a dying light on the horizon. He drove a steady seventy-five when he was able and faster when he could. The Impala ate up the hours and the miles until the road was a rolling blur of glittering asphalt beneath her wheels and Dean needed badly to rest.  
   
He didn’t stop. More than rest, more than anything, he needed to find Sam.  
   
*  
   
The two male demons called the female Lilah. Lilah liked to do things to Ruby while they stood and watched. She particularly liked working with a X-acto knife. Her favorite was pink, with a nice grip that kept her fingers from slipping in all the blood. She equipped it with blade #28, which was hooked like a scythe for shaping and excellent for leather work. She drew her patterns carefully, holding the X-acto just right, so that the strange curves and slow curls flowed wide and then small, sweeping over the skin of Ruby’s belly and abdomen. Wiping the blood away as often as she needed to keep the pattern in view was Lilah’s only irritation, and it was a minor one. The cutting entranced her.  
   
Lilith came in, standing just inside the doorway. She closed her eyes and listened to Ruby’s voice, how it wavered when Lilah bent low and asked Ruby what she thought of her work.  
   
Neither Lilah nor the male demons touched Sam. He was Lilith’s.  
   
Lilith fed from Sam throughout the first day, lying with her body against his, hot as a furnace. She pressed her breasts to his side, her arms wrapped around his neck, whispering  more of the strange words that made the blood surge to her mouth, traitor to his body. She drank, weakening and then starving him of the power Ruby’s blood had given back to him after the long hours in Bobby’s panic room.    
   
The last time she drank from Sam, Dean came to stand over them, hands crossed over his chest and mouth set in disgust as if he’d been made to swallow something bitter.  Sam told him he’d tried to get away, but it didn’t matter. Dean’s pupils glowed red, filled with hate. He leaned close.  
   
“You sick freak,” he whispered. “Why did I ever think of you as a brother?” The flames in his eyes leaped out onto Sam. Sam’s hair burned, electric blue flames, the fire sizzling and popping so that his skin erupted in blisters.   
   
*  
   
Lilith left Ruby and Sam alone most of the next day. Lilah and her two companions came in and gave them some water, took them out a few times from the room, down the hallway in the old farmhouse to a bathroom. The wallpaper was stained brown in places, and the room smelled like old sewage.  
   
Sam lay on the cot, eyes fixed to the ceiling, body quaking all over occasionally, then subsiding. His face was gray, his eyes red-rimmed. He hallucinated, had one-sided conversations with people who weren’t there. He called out Dean’s name, and once sobbed it over and over like an inconsolable child.  
   
He finally came to himself enough to talk to Ruby during the afternoon. “Does it hurt?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. His green eyes were dim and fathomless, full of blameless pain like an animal’s.  
   
“Am I hurting, do you mean?” Ruby asked.  
   
Sam nodded. “Your ear. The rest. Do demons hurt when their bodies hurt? I’ve seen plenty of you walk around with killing injuries.”  
   
“It hurts if we’re in here when it’s happening,” Ruby answered. “But even then it feels kind of far away. Unless we stay with one body too long. It’s like we get anchored in or something. Then we feel more pain.”  
   
“So does it hurt you now?” Sam asked. His fingers twisted and squirmed, the veins stark, standing out on the backs of his hands. It was the only part of him he couldn’t seem to keep still at least part of the time.  
   
The same question he’d asked first, but she hadn’t understood. “Yeah,” Ruby said quietly.  
   
“I’m sorry if it’s bad.” Sam’s voice was soft, nearly weightless.  
   
“You didn’t do this,” Ruby said sharply. She sighed. “How’re you feeling?”  
   
Sam’s eyebrows rose. “You’re not too good with the touchy feely stuff, are you?”  
   
She sighed again. “Sam, meet demon.”  
   
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But I appreciate the effort anyway. Thanks.”  
   
Ruby laughed, horrified when it nearly turned to tears.  
   
Sam saw it, too. “You’re not like the rest of them.” He stared up at the ceiling again. “Why is that, you think?”  
   
“I don’t know,” Ruby said softly. “I never have.” She paused. “You overheard them talking, right? Something’s going down tonight. They wanted us to hear.  Probably figure the anticipation’ll drive us nuts.”  
   
“Yeah. Something bad’s coming.”  
   
Ruby turned her head and looked at him a long moment, then away. “Yeah.”  
   
*  
   
The Chevy’s headlights cut a path through the dark, fog creeping up, meeting over the road. The trees blurred one into the other alongside. He drove over a twisting, curving two-lane blacktop highway, unable to drive over forty. Even that sometimes swung him into the oncoming traffic lane, but he couldn’t make himself slow down, not with the litany of faster, faster, ticking like a clock inside his head.  
   
The road took a sudden sharp right, and Dean almost drove off the road, instead stepping on the brakes and swerving the car sharply. His front tires bumped into the grass. The rear held the pavement.  
   
He leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes, wishing for more coffee.  He pulled out his phone, staring at it. “Probably no signal,” he muttered tiredly, surprised when there actually was. He called Sam. It rolled over into voicemail, same as it had before.  “Hey, it's me. Uh...” he cleared his throat, not knowing what to say. “Look, I'll just get right to it. I'm still pissed, and I owe you a serious beatdown. But I shouldn't have said what I said. I'm not Dad. We're brothers. Family. No matter how bad it gets, that doesn't change.” Dean closed his eyes. “Sammy, I'm sorry. Whatever goes down next, we need to face it together. Call me.” The phone beeped.  
   
He dropped it into his lap, hunched over the steering wheel. _Shit, it can’t be too late._  
   
Dean straightened up, his mouth set in a determined line. He pulled back onto the road and drove, more relieved than he could say when the road finally widened and straightened, the fog falling back with the trees, retreating into the fields.  
   
He took the next exit, pulling into a truck stop. The fluorescent lights high up in the canopy overhead dimmed as the sun rose.  
   
The clerk inside smiled at him cheerily when he paid for the biggest cup of coffee in the place. The place was shiny, every surface polished and reflective. _Too_ clean, too shiny, too cheery—the place gave him an eerie Stepford Wives vibe.  
   
He checked the phone app again. The dot that represented Sam had been still for too long. It felt wrong. Why would Sam hole up at this late stage? Could he have thrown out his phone, would he have done that?  
   
Or maybe somebody had him so he couldn’t go anywhere.  
   
Dean’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He started up the Impala and drove.   
   
*  
   
Shortly before sunset, the door to their room opened. Lilith entered wearing a long white dress.  
   
“Big night on the town?” Ruby asked, raising an eyebrow.  
   
Lilith ignored her, lowered herself to her knees in the trash beside Sam’s cot and stroked the hair off his forehead, then smoothed over his cheeks lovingly, down his throat to brush over the wound at the top of the shoulder. Sam shivered, staring up at the ceiling.  
   
“So far the mighty have fallen,” she whispered. “But the distance really wasn’t very far at all, was it?” She leaned over, forcing her tongue into the shoulder wound, lapping up fresh blood. Sam didn’t react and she withdrew, licking her lips. “It doesn’t matter, Sam. There are plans for you. When they’re complete, no one will be able to stop you.” Her hand trailed over his chest, resting over his heart, then moved to curve over a nipple. She held it there, warming it.  
   
Lilith looked over at Ruby. “What were you thinking, Ruby? Did you think you could actually stop Lucifer?” She began unbuttoning Sam’s shirt. “The poor little demon who wanted to be human again. Really? The humanity’s burned out of you. None of your wishes, none of what you think you’ve done in its name can bring it back.”  
   
Ruby rolled her head and looked at her. “So you’re all dressed up for springing Lucifer from the cage tonight, right? I have to tell you, I’m not getting it. All I can see is that you’ll be second in command once he’s back. Been a long time since you had a boss peering over your shoulder, Lilith. Think it’ll sit well with you?”  
   
Lilith finished unbuttoning Sam’s shirt, folded it back and smoothed her hands over the edges. Sam blinked down at her, finally roused from his stare at the ceiling. The skin under his eyes was papery and nearly black.  
   
Lilith unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. Sam tensed, and Lilith smirked at him. “There’s a good boy, Sam.” She looked at Ruby again. “In your most secret of secret little hearts, is it possible that this is what you were after? All that time?” She grasped the waistline of Sam’s jeans and underwear, dragging them both down over his thighs.  
   
“Stop,” Sam whispered, his lips dry and cracked. His stomach muscles writhed against her touch.  
   
“No, I’m not talking about his body. He paid for the blood you gave him with that, the little whore. I’m talking about how you wanted him to love you,” Lilith said, ignoring him. “He doesn’t have room for you in his heart, silly little demon. There’s only one person for him. Isn’t that right, Sam?” She leaned over and crushed her mouth to his, quick and savage. Sam turned his head to the side and dragged his mouth away, gasping. Lilith’s hair trailed over his face. She licked and kissed over his chin, down his throat, to the ragged red edges of his wound, where she began to suck, clinging to him. Sam cried out miserably.  
   
Finally Lilith resurfaced, her face smeared in red. “If Sam’s hurt, or dreaming, he needs help, he’s alone … it’s always, always Dean,” she said in a sing-song voice. “It will never be you, Ruby. You never had a chance.”  
   
Lilith ran a hand down his body and curled it around his scrotum, rolling his balls gently in her hand. Her other hand caught him at the base of his flaccid cock. He flinched from her touch, shuddering.  
   
“That just won’t do, Sam,” Lilith chided. She raised herself up and swallowed him whole.   
   
“Fuck you, get off me!” he screamed, his voice breaking. He slammed his head against the cot, pulled his feet up a short inch before the ropes caught him, slammed them back down, drummed his wrists against the sides, anything to stop her.  
   
 _Oh god, oh please_ , and suddenly he heard his own voice, saying it out loud. He was saying it out loud. He made himself shut up, biting his tongue until it bled, swallowing his own blood, swallowing again, tongue swiping, seeking more of it, then biting the inside of his cheek for more. Jesus, drinking his own blood. He didn’t recognize himself, wished that he didn’t, too confused and weak, as if he’d died already or wanted to be instead of leaving only this shell, this blood-sucking freak he’d made of himself behind.  
   
Sam turned his head and vomited thin spit off the side of the cot.  
   
Lilith didn’t stop, didn’t so much as flinch, her wide mouth sucking him, tongue probing, licking at his cock. It began to fill, some alien thing not part of him, not, twitching against her tongue. Sam moaned in shame, trying to twist, get away.  
  
Ruby watched Lilith, her mouth stretched obscenely over him, moving up and down, sucking him like a lollipop, slurping at the head and pulling off. His cock plopped out of her mouth, fat and glistening. Lilith looked at Ruby and smiled, triumph on her face, then sank back down over him. Sam’s back arched helplessly, his face turned away. Ruby heard the noises he made, fear and disgust, shame and sickness and something else he would never have wanted her to hear pouring out of his mouth.   
   
Sam’s breaths were long and rasping after Lilith was done with him, as if he struggled to breathe. It didn’t seem to concern Lilith.  
   
“Your blood and hers, your come ... what’s left of you I don't have yet, Sam?” Lilith watched him, considering, then dropped her head down next to his. “Is there anything else I can find to take?” she whispered. She reached up fast and clutched his balls in her hand, squeezing sudden and hard. He moaned, his eyes watering.  
   
Lilith reached up and licked the water from his eye. “There,” she murmured, and brushed his hair off his forehead again. “Now I’ve got it all.”  
   
“Dean,” Sam said like a prayer before his fogged, fucked-up mind remembered he shouldn’t, that Dean wasn’t there. Lilith sank back on her haunches and laughed, supporting her body with a hand in the trash on the floor.  
   
*  
   
Dean turned onto I-70 in the early evening. The clouds were staggered one after another on the horizon, flat and far-away, turning to gray in the lowering light. Only another hundred miles to go before he got to where Sam was. Sam, who apparently had spent the last twenty-some odd hours in the same spot in nowhere, Maryland.  
   
Dean’s eyes felt grainy and hot, the coffee doing as much good as beating a dead horse by now.  He exited and pulled up in front of another brightly lit store, grabbing a pack of energy tablets. They always made him feel like shit after he crashed, but he hoped they’d do the trick for now.  
  
He swallowed a couple and got back on the highway, watching the speedometer go back up to seventy-five. He blinked, yawning hard enough that his jaw cracked. The next time he looked Castiel was sitting in the passenger’s seat, suddenly just _there_ in that unsettling way he had.   
   
“Shit!” Dean swerved the car a little, then glared at Castiel.  
   
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Castiel sat back in the seat, as composed as ever. “You called, Dean?”  
   
“I did _yesterday,_ ” Dean grumped.  
   
Castiel spared him a brief glance, then looked out the passenger window again. “I came as soon as I could.”  
   
“Sam’s in Maryland. I’m going after him.”  
   
Cas’ brow wrinkled. “And how do you know that?”  
   
Dean raised his eyebrows and nodded his head toward Castiel. “When angel radar fails, there’s always technology, Cas.”  
   
“It’s not something I have needed. Why are you going after Sam?”  
   
Dean frowned and gunned the Chevy, passing a hybrid on the road. “You have to ask? He’s my brother. He needs me.”  
   
“I was under the impression you were going after Lilith.”  
   
“I am. Soon as I find Sam.”  
   
“You’re in our service. You haven’t forgotten that.”  
   
Dean glanced at Castiel. “Yeah, I get it, I’m on call. Well, nobody’s called.”  
   
Cas spoke carefully. “What else can you hope to do for him, Dean? Whatever Sam’s doing, it’s by choice. You cannot save him from himself. Heaven and the angels have warned him.”  
   
“You weren’t against helping when Sam was in the panic room. Nothing’s changed, Cas. What’s going on with you?”  
   
Cas looked out the window, his blue eyes sorrowful. “He’s doing it to himself, Dean.”  
   
“I heard that, yeah, but it’s not exactly true. He’s had a lot of help, a lot of pushing, I’m thinking. For one thing, who let him out of the panic room?”  
   
“It doesn’t _matter,_ ” Castiel said, leaning closer toward Dean as if that would make him see. “It’s bigger than that. It’s his destiny. How do you expect me or anyone to fight that for you?”  
   
Dean wheeled the Impala over to a sudden stop at the side of the highway, kicking up dust and gravel. “You sorry son of a bitch. All that destiny crap, it’s just _words_ , don’t you get that?  Your so-called brothers use them on you to make you do what they want, but what’s going on here is a gangbang. Somebody's helping Sam down that road, making him believe that destroying himself is the way to kill Lilith. The price to be paid, right, fine and dandy as long as it gets results. He's bought into it, hook line and sinker, but you listen to me, Cas—my brother's life is never an acceptable price. I’m going to save him, and then we’re going to stop this thing from happening. _Together_.”  
   
Cas rubbed his forehead. “What’s the point of stopping any of it? Of saving people?"  
  
Dean looked at him, bewildered. "What the hell does that mean?"  
  
"I see nothing worth saving. Everywhere I look, I see only misery and guilt. Especially for you and Sam. Is this what you want? How could this be your choice?"  
   
Dean pointed his finger at Cas. “It is my choice. I’ll take all of it, as long as I have the freedom to make my own decisions. And I’ll tell you what’s worth saving. Families. People who really care for each other, who know what it means to help each other, unlike your so-called angel family in heaven.” Dean pounded the steering wheel. “Why bother showing up at all if this is how you feel?”  
   
“Because I’m confused. I don't know what I'm supposed to do,” Castiel confessed, looking down at his hands. “I was taken back to heaven, as you know. Being recalled is … unpleasant, to put it mildly. They tried to make me think differently, but even after everything they did to me, what they’re doing now feels …” Castiel shook his head. “very wrong. ” He took a deep breath. “They’re hurting your brother, Dean, draining him of his power. He’ll need blood. They’re starving him of it so he’ll take it from Lilith and kill her in the process.”  
  
Dean stared at Cas. "The angels? Why?"  
  
“Not the angels, but they know. They're doing nothing to stop it. It’s the final seal, Dean. Your brother will kill Lilith and rise as a king at Lucifer’s side.”  
   
Dean gripped Castiel’s collar and shook him, shouting. “So you’re just now getting around to telling me you know all this? What else haven’t you told me, Cas?”  
   
Castiel’s face went completely blank, as if preparing for Dean’s reaction. “I let Sam out of the panic room.”  
   
Stunned, Dean released him.  
   
Cas pulled away, hunched and miserable. He stared out of the window again. “I followed _orders,_ Dean, just like you used to do with your father.”  
   
Dean’s voice was deadly. “You betrayed him. Both of us.”  
   
“I … I’m sorry. I thought I was doing my duty. I was wrong.”  
   
Dean held out a hand. “Stop. I could care less if you’re _sorry_. The angels want the Apocalypse. Why?”  
   
“They want war to happen. They think they’ll win it, and Paradise on earth will follow.”  
   
Dean’s face was white and set. “And God? Where the fuck is he?”  
   
Cas shook his head wearily. “Nobody knows where he is. We never have known.”  
   
Dean nodded tightly. “You get me to Sam, you help me find him or so help me, Lucifer can bend you and your army of angels over the nearest armchair and I swear I’ll grab a six-pack and find an audience to share the show with.”  
   
Cas’s expression was serious, almost sad. “You swore allegiance to Heaven.”  
   
Dean shrugged and looked back behind him for oncoming cars. “I lied.” He pulled out again, spraying gravel and dirt behind the car.   
   
*  
   
Lilith’s fingers curled over the waist of Sam’s jeans, pulling them up over his thighs. Her hand brushed over the phone in his pocket. She tapped it through the denim with long, pink fingernails, then pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it. “Oh, look. You’ve gotten messages while we were busy.  I bet it’s Dean. What do you think, Sam?” She sighed, bored when he didn’t answer. “You want to hear or should I erase them?” Lilith dangled the phone between her fingertips, then made a motion as if to throw the phone away.  
   
“Don’t.” Sam’s voice was rust and sickness.    
   
Lilith raised her eyebrows at him and smiled, pressing the play button.  Message one was Bobby, urging Sam to call. So was the second, Bobby sounding a little more perturbed. Lilith rolled her eyes, looking at Ruby as if in commiseration.    
   
The third was Dean, his voice deadly fast. “Listen to me—”  
   
Sam heard the first word and couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from Lilith’s white grin, sharp and savage and pleased at finding still more. The most important thing. He couldn’t keep her from seeing what it did to him.    
   
“ —you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam—a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back.”  
   
After it fell silent, Lilith looked at the phone a moment, then tossed it into the trash on the floor.  
   
*  
   
“GPS says he’s here,” Dean said tightly, coasting the Impala to a stop in front of a large old house. It was white and peeling, the only house on the looping graveled road. There were no cars outside. Dean’s stomach sank at the implication.  
   
Castiel disappeared, then reappeared again almost before Dean could react. “Dammit, Cas, is he in there?”  
   
“No. Ruby is inside, bound to a cot. She has a guard. A demon. I thought you might want to question her.”  
   
“You thought that, huh?” Dean muttered, grabbing the demon killing knife from beneath the front seat of the car. He rolled down the Impala’s window and crawled out. The door was too noisy to open this close to the house.   
   
Dean opened the locked front door with a credit card, though the lock was flimsy enough that he probably could have broken it easily. Credit cards were quieter. He crept into the front rooms and up the stairs, directed by Castiel to a room at the end of a narrow hallway. Just outside the door, the floorboards creaked. Castiel looked at him, frowning slightly. Dean winced.  
   
“Come on in, Dean.” A female voice came from inside the room.  
   
Dean shrugged and tucked the knife into the back of his jeans, then stepped inside. Ruby was tied to a cot, her face ashy gray, her hair tangled and limp. Another cot was beside hers, empty, a rumpled, bloodied sheet halfway off the thin mattress.  
   
“Where is he?” Dean demanded, stepping closer to the dark-haired demon leaning against the wall by Ruby.  
   
“Gone.” Lilah picked at a fingernail, then looked up at Dean. “Lilith said you’d show. You’re too late.”  
   
“Where did she take him?”  
   
Lilah shrugged. “I’m on guard duty, what do you think they tell me?”  
   
“She’s a liar. But it doesn’t matter,” Ruby said. She coughed.  
   
Castiel searched the ground with his eyes, then bent at the knee. He fished around in the garbage-covered floor.  
   
Dean moved closer to Ruby. “What’s wrong with you?”  
   
The corner of Ruby’s lips lifted. She rolled her head, looking at the demon. “She’s also a whittler. Been practicing on me.”  
   
Lilah nodded. “I’m upping my skills for sure.” Dean gave her a look but she didn’t move, slouched against the wall.  
   
Ruby’s mutilated ear was exposed when she’d turned her head. Dean bent and looked at it up close. “Ugh. Looks like a rat’s been gnawing at it.”    
   
“Ever helpful, aren’t you? St. Mary’s convent, Dean. Keep driving and you’ll run right into it.” Ruby’s voice slurred.  
   
“And why am I taking your word for it?” Dean asked.  
   
“Because I'm the only game in town, Brainiac.”  
  
There was a rumbling sound from outside, drawing closer. The floors began to shake beneath their feet.  
   
“What the hell?” Dean said.  
   
The lights began to flicker, the bulbs rattling in their settings.  
   
“I understand why you don’t like her—she is a demon—but she’s never betrayed Sam,” Castiel said, and unspoken but heard by both, the way I have.  “Besides, she may be able to help.” He stood, Sam’s phone in his hand.  
   
Dean grabbed the phone from him, then reluctantly pulled the knife from the back of his jeans and cut Ruby free. He looked at the phone and then at Ruby pointedly.  
   
“Lilith threw it,” she said in a near-monotone.  
   
Castiel looked all around the room as the shaking increased. One of the lights in the hallway blew. He nodded at Dean. “Go rescue Sam.”  
   
Dean headed for the door, Ruby behind him. He stopped just inside it. “What’ll you be doing?”  
   
Cas gave him one last look. “Zachariah is sending an archangel for me. One of the ‘big guns,’ as you’d say. They'll be after you next. I’ll hold them back as long as I can.”  
   
Lilah looked afraid. Castiel raised a hand to her forehead without looking. She fell to the ground, boneless, as the light in the room went a bright, sharp white.  
   
“Go _now,_ ” Castiel said, moving to look out the window.  
   
Dean and Ruby clattered down the stairs, running to the Impala. Upstairs the window glowed where Castiel stood, lighting the yard and grounds outside as if it were daylight.

*

He lay on cold stone, white candles burning all around him. Power stirred in the air, prickling over his skin. Ruby leaned over him, her skin glowing softly, hair shining, lips full and red. She looked sad. “There’s nothing left for it, Sam. You can’t keep on like this. You need blood.”  
   
Sam shook his head. “I can’t do that.”  
   
“But this is what we wanted, so you could be strong and defeat her.” Ruby stroked his cheek.  
   
“It won't work, Ruby,” he muttered, trying to open his eyes, to speak clearly. It was hard. His mouth didn’t want to work any better than the rest of him. “This is her game all the way, not ours.”  
   
“You’re dying, Sam. Please, just a little.” She reached up and dragged her thumbnail over her throat, wincing. Blood rose to the surface of her skin. A single drop ran down her throat, dark against her paleness.  
   
A moment ago, just a single moment, he’d been numb inside. It was easy saying no while feeling no hunger, no pain, but now, now he watched the blood roll down her throat and his mouth was a desert, he was starving, veins drawing and shriveling, insides hollow and thin like glass, threatening to collapse in and shatter upon themselves.  
   
“Please don’t die on me, Sam,” Ruby said, fear on her face. Then she was gone and Dean stood where she had, eyes red-rimmed and lost, voice catching, stumbling over the words. “You can’t do this to me, Sam. You can’t leave again.”  
   
Sam closed his eyes, confused. Warm arms came around him, pulling him close. Blood smeared over his mouth. He could smell it, warm and salty and metallic.  
   
 _So hungry._ He touched his tongue to his lip and the taste burst out over his tongue. He opened his mouth against her throat, all reaction and instinct, catching the tear in her skin with his teeth and opening it brutally. The blood was earthy and sharp and powerful, strong tang against his tongue.  
   
“The king is dead,” Ruby whispered, throat vibrating beneath his mouth. “Long live the king.”  
   
The pieces began to fall together again, reality sharpening, separating from confusion and sickness. Sam grabbed her shoulders, using her body to shove himself away. Lilith watched and did nothing to stop him, red madness and sorrow in her faraway eyes, gore flowing down her neck.  
  
She opened her mouth and spoke. “And it is written, the first demon will be the last seal. The boy king will slay Lucifer's first and take her place; so then will Lucifer rise.”  
   
*  
   
Dean stormed inside, the dark stone walls of the convent curving over him, closing in. He ran toward the last open door. His brother stood in front of an altar, so tall, carved in candlelight against the darkness of the room, curved over Lilith’s body and cradling her to him. Lighting flared outside, and for a moment Sam looked skeletal in the white light.  
   
Sam pushed Lilith away suddenly. She said something that made him stop. Sam flashed a look over his shoulder at Dean—  
   
 _Red eyes and burning flames, cruel, strong lines of Sam’s face, strength grown in darkness, reaching toward him—calling his name—_  
   
“Dean—” Sam said. Dean blinked. The spell broke and it was just Sam, sick and alone. “I keep seeing things, people, I—” Sam’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know who to believe.”  
   
“Believe me, okay? Listen to me. We gotta get you out of here.” Dean had almost made it to Sam when there was a _PUSH_ , propelling his body back against a wall.  
   
Sam looked up. “Stop!” he shouted, raising a hand to Lilith, that bullish, thick voice of his when he was almost beyond reason. The grip on Dean released. He slid to the floor.  
   
Sam wiped his face, smearing blood from his mouth. He looked down at his hand, staring at the blood.  
            
“Oh man, Sammy,” Dean muttered. He got up, scrambling toward his brother.  
   
“Ruby, you’re here,” Lilith said softly. Blood soaked her white dress. “Look what your Sam’s done to me.”  
   
Ruby stopped in front of Lilith, studying her. “It’s a mess, all right.” She nodded at Sam. “Helluva job.”  
   
“Sam, you okay?” Dean asked.  
   
“What do you want,” Sam said, and staggered. “I drank more blood, freak that I am.” His face twisted. “You can go now.”  
   
“Not going anywhere, you moron,” Dean said, grabbing his arm to steady him.    
   
“She tricked me. I was hallucinating,” Sam said, sagging against Dean’s shoulder for an instant. “I won’t do it, Dean. I won’t drink anymore. I’ll die first.”  
   
Dean shook his shoulder gently. “Hey. I believe you.”  
   
Sam closed his eyes. “No, you don’t.”  
   
Lilith’s hand curled around Dean’s bicep from behind, flinging him against the altar. She was on Dean in a second, grabbing an ornate knife from the altar. “It’s time, Sam. Take what’s yours or he goes back with me to hell.” She looked at Dean, rubbed the back of her hand over his cheek. “Won’t that be nice?”  
   
“What do you want me to do?” Sam swayed before her at the altar, ignoring Dean’s shouts to stay back.  
   
“How do you feel, Sam? Are you sick? It's hard even to walk, isn't it? You need more blood. Drink from me. Drown in my blood. When the world is red in your vision, Lucifer will rise, and nothing will ever be the same again. I won't be able to hurt you or your brother anymore. No one will,” Lilith promised.  
   
“I thought you’d gotten everything I had—isn’t that what you said?” Sam said. He fell to the floor, then climbed upright again, holding onto the altar to steady him. “And you still need me to kill you?” He laughed, the edges of it jagged and wild.  
   
Dean slowly pulled the knife from the back of his waistband.  
   
“You should have told me. I wouldn't have said no. I've been waiting for this for a very long time.” Sam took a step toward Lilith. He reached out, brushing her throat with his fingers, then gently wrapped his hand around the side and held it there. He leaned over her, his mouth descending to hers.    
   
Dean stabbed her in the back, the blade of the knife grating on bone. Lilith flung her hands out, back arching. Sam moved out of the way. Dean pulled the knife out with a squelching sound and drove it back into her flesh, using both hands.  
Lilith reached behind her, clawed at Dean's hand and pulled the knife out, throwing it across the room. “You’re not the one who finishes it,” Lilith said, gasping for breath.  
Ruby ran after the knife, picking it up and throwing it, flying true from her grip to stab Lilith in one of her blind white eyes. Lilith screamed.  
  
Dean leaned close. "Think again." He pulled the knife out, stabbing her again and again, blood spattering his face and clothes.  
   
Lilith sank to the floor, white dress gone mostly red. She raised a hand. “Drink, Sam,” she said, smiling sleepily. Her hand thumped to her side on the stone floor. She twitched and rolled toward him as if to draw him to her still. “Sam? Where are you?”  
   
Sam came to stand over her, looking down. “I’m right here.”  
   
Lilith smiled again, slow and drowsy. “You can't imagine the power you'll feel. Drink from me and nothing will hurt. No one will be able to stop you. Just bring my father to me, and your reward will be great. He's been trapped for so long.”  
   
Sam bared blood-stained teeth. “No.”  
   
Terror crossed Lilith’s face. “Ruby, help me.”  
   
Ruby shook her head. “I'm the one who just stabbed you in the face, remember?”  
   
Lilith’s eyes started to glow, brighter and brighter. As if in a dream, Sam dropped to his knees.  
   
“Sammy, no!” Dean shouted.  
   
The white blazed from her good eye, leaked all around the ruined edges of the other. Sam looked closer, thought someone else peered out from them. Someone trapped and enraged, powerful beyond measure.  
   
He clutched his stomach and fell to his knees, retching, then sank to the ground before Lilith, the pain of the withdrawal he’d suffered the last few days cresting, crashing over him all at once. “Dean!” he choked out.  
   
Dean pulled him up from the floor, slinging Sam's arm over his shoulder. They shuffled toward the door. Ruby went through it, barely visible in the blaring light, and held it open for Sam and Dean. They ran for the Impala, light spilling over the walk behind them.  
   
Dean deposited Sam in the passenger seat and ran around the front of the car, fishing for his keys. He leaped inside and started the car as Ruby climbed into the back seat.  
   
A rumbling sound came from the convent, blinding white light spilling out of the windows and beneath the doors, slipping through cracks invisible to the naked eye. Dean took off in the Impala, gunning the engine, brilliant white light imprinted over the darkness of the road until he could barely see to drive.    
   
He pulled over an hour later, Sam shaking hard in the seat beside him. Sam looked at him from between hunched shoulders, sweat rolling down his brow, dark shadows beneath his eyes. “You’re not gonna want me back like this, Dean.”  
   
Dean stared at him. “I don’t know what this shit is from you. Didn't you get my message?”  
   
Sam nodded, his face closing off, going stony. “Yeah, I got it.”  
   
Dean looked bewildered. “Well then.” He shook his head and looked at Ruby in the rearview mirror. “Cas says you’re really Sam’s friend, Ruby. Prove it. You think you can help him slack off a little at a time?”  
   
“ _No!_ ” Sam said from between gritted teeth.  
  
“Are you crazy? You know what this did to you in Bobby’s panic room—you can’t go through that again. Look, Sam, I was wrong.”  
  
“And what if I lose control again?”  
  
 Ruby rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I saw how you lost control back there, all right. I’m plenty worried.”  
  
“Would you just quit with the attitude?” Sam said. “I went after Lilith. I drank some of her blood.”  
  
“You were tricked, and you still didn’t take enough to help you. If I believe you can do this, and hell, if even Dean believes in you, then why can’t you?” Ruby said. Dean frowned at her, and Ruby looked at him, disgusted. “You’re all like this, aren’t you?”  
  
“All who?”  
  
“The Winchesters.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Pretty much. Even before we were all that’s left.”  
  
“And Lilith thought I wanted to deal with that kind of stupidity on a permanent basis. Get back here, Sam. Somebody give me a knife.”  
  
Sam’s foot jittered in the footwell. “I said no.”  
  
Dean reached out, rubbed his shoulder. “I won’t let it get out of control, okay? I promise.”  
  
Sam looked up at him finally, shivering, his eyes hard and dark. “You can’t just turn on a fucking dime. First you’d rather let me die than let me have it, now this?”  
  
“Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall,” Dean grumbled. He grasped Sam’s face in his hand, forcing him to look up. “I don’t want you to go through this again. Sue me.”  
  
Sam met his eyes. “Tough.” He wrenched his face away and looked out the window, hunching in on himself. “Stop looking at me.”  
  
Ruby looked at Dean. “Speaking of Cas, wonder if he’s okay?”  
  
 Dean stared out at the road and didn’t answer.  
  
*  
   
Dean found a shitty motel—he was good at that—one he hoped wouldn’t question his blood-stained shirt. It was one-story, L-shaped, with a cinderblock exterior on a cleared-out lot in the middle of Bumfuck. Weeds and trees pushed up against the backside of it. The parking lot was empty aside from an early 80s Honda parked to the side of the office.  
  
A guy who looked enough like Norman Bates to be his brother grinned a toothy grin at Dean when he stepped inside to check in. Dean stared at him a moment. “This the Bates Motel?”  
  
The guy slapped the desk as if to laugh and then stopped, the grin starting on his face dying a sudden death. He pointed at a name plate on the desk: Ronald Shores, manager. “People like you are the reason I got this, wise guy. You here for a room or you just stopped in to make jokes?”  
  
“Can I get one on the far end?” Dean pulled out a card.  
  
Ronald Shores looked at him suspiciously. “What for?”  
  
“Ah, just … you know, light sleeper.”  
  
“Wouldn’t want the crowds of people here to wake you, that it?”  
  
Dean spread his hands. “Hey, you never know when the next big rush is gonna hit, right? Listen, could you hurry it up? I’m wiped.”  
  
Ronald shrugged and picked up Dean’s credit card from the desk, peering at it. “Whatever you say, Mr. Osborne.”  
  
*  
  
After Sam made it clear he meant what he said and wasn’t interested in taking her up on the offer of demon blood, Ruby left. Dean followed her outside, but she spoke before he had a chance to open his mouth.  
  
“I’ll call and check in, in case you need me. Or he changes his mind.” Ruby reached out and squeezed his hand. Dean couldn’t make his mouth move to form words. He wanted to tell her something, apologize, even, but she was already halfway down the walk. He’d have bet a twenty on her knowing what he meant to say and leaving quickly to spare them both.      
  
Sam had only gotten worse in the three days since Ruby had left.    
  
The contrast from the time spent in Bobby’s panic room was striking. Sam didn’t call out for Dean, didn’t demand anything, didn’t try to get away. He paced the room, long legs eating up the distance from wall to wall in five steps. He’d curl up on the bed sometimes, arms wrapped around his stomach. He dreamt, and woke himself up shouting, sometimes crying, though he’d stop as soon as his eyes opened. It was eerie, the way he’d cut himself off. He asked Dean for nothing.  
  
Dean fetched him water, made him drink it, got him to change clothes when he needed it, and tried his best to feed him. Sam couldn’t keep much food down, and finally in desperation Dean dared to leave the motel room long enough to go after some Pedialyte, racing to the nearest Walmart and buying a case of it, nearly leaving behind his credit card in his haste to rush out the door.  
  
Any other time and he’d have had fun teasing Sam about dosing him up with a kid’s drink. Not now.  
  
He heard only silence, approaching the door of the motel. Somehow that made it worse, though it’d been the norm more often than not since they’d arrived. Dean gave into his fears and ran to the door. He promptly dropped his key, trying to juggle the damn Pedialyte. Cursing, he stooped, grabbed the key off the doormat and opened the door, bursting into the room.  
  
Sam was sitting on the floor against the wall. His eyes were closed, and he was rocking, banging his head against concrete. Dean dropped the Pedialyte in the floor and knelt beside his brother, curving a hand around the back of Sam’s head to feel for damage. There was a lump the size of an egg at the back of his skull.  
  
“Sam,” he started, and then it all rose up inside, everything that had passed between them, no, _gotten_ between them the past fucking year, and Dean suddenly had to will himself to breathe, just fucking _breathe_ — “you gotta stop this. Talk to me.”  
  
Something in his tone made Sam’s eyes open, green and brown and murky. “I’ll be okay. It’s just … she won’t go away.”  
  
Dean rubbed down the back of Sam’s neck, fingers slow and soothing. “Lilith?”  
  
Sam nodded.  
  
“She’s dead, man. We killed her.”  
  
Sam shook his head. “We don’t know that for sure.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “She looked pretty dead to me.” He hesitated. “What’d she do to you at the farmhouse?”  
  
Sam rolled his head to the side, away from Dean. “It’s nothing. It’s over.”  
  
Dean dropped his hand to Sam’s thigh, squeezing it to get his attention. “It looks like more than nothing,” he said softly.  
  
Slowly Sam turned and looked at him, all the stubbornness and pride snuffed out, leaving his face naked. “I thought you wanted to kill me.”  
  
“Yeah, right,” Dean said. He took another, closer look at his brother’s face. “What the hell—?”  
  
“It’s what you said.” Sam’s face tightened, misery written all over him.  
  
Dean’s fingers tightened on Sam’s thigh. “I’ve taken care of you since you were damn well born! What’s up with you, Sam? Is it Lilith, is that something she put in your head?”  
  
“The one thing I was always afraid of, Dean, you know?” Sam said, staring at the ceiling.  
   
“What?” Dean shook him a little. “Say it. _What_?”  
   
“Being so different that even you would hate me.”  
   
Dean looked bewildered. “I would never hate you. You were destroying yourself so you could kill Lilith, and you kept saying it didn’t matter but it did, it matters to me, Sam, _please_.” Dean’s voice wavered. “If this was ever about her sending me to hell, I’m back. I can’t do this without you, I don’t _want_ to.”  
  
 “I can’t talk about this, Dean. Not now.”  
  
“But I don’t get why you’d ever think—” Dean started, then trailed off, remembering.  
  
 _Didn’t you get my message?_  
  
And Sam’s face, shuttered and cold, shutting him out completely. _Yeah, I got it._  
  
Sam’s phone was on the nightstand, untouched since Dean laid it there three days ago. Dean stood and picked it up, scrolling for the message he’d left Sam. He pressed PLAY almost convulsively.  
   
Sam gave a bad start, then settled back slowly against the wall, closing his eyes again.  Dean’s eyes grew wide. At last the message fell silent.  
   
Dean threw the phone on the bed and sat down in front of Sam. Sam’s eyes shifted away, to the left and then the right, but Dean didn’t let him escape. He wrapped a hand around the back of Sam’s neck again and pulled him close, their foreheads touching, speaking softly. “I didn’t—God, I’d never say that shit to you, no matter how mad I am. I called you, okay, but it was to tell you I’m sorry.”  
  
Sam braced himself with both hands against the floor, his shoulders tensing as he tried to get up, but Dean held him tightly.  
  
“I told you nothing ever got bad enough for me to leave you behind. Believe me, you gotta believe me, _please_ —” Dean leaned forward and pressed his lips to Sam’s.  
  
Sam made a startled sound and Dean pulled back, mortified, eyes wide.  
  
Sam cupped Dean’s face in both hands and yanked him back, kissing him fiercely. He sank into the wall at his back, pulling Dean with him, running a hand over Dean’s cheekbone and behind his ear to grab at Dean’s short hair, changing the angle of Dean’s mouth on his until they fit perfectly. He slid down the wall so that his head rested awkwardly against the baseboard, all the while holding Dean fast.  
  
“Sammy, we can get somewhere more comfortable,” Dean pulled away long enough to murmur in his ear, but Sam only moaned and crushed his lips to Dean’s, arching his body to rub against him.    
  
“Jesus,” Dean breathed. He pushed Sam flat on the floor again, fumbled at Sam’s belt and unzipped his jeans. Sam was hard, his cock jerking against Dean’s fingers as they curled around and gripped him tight. Slowly Dean began to move, almost teasingly.      
  
“Dammit, Dean,” Sam complained, his voice low and rough. His eyes opened to slits, dark and pleading, color high on his cheeks. He rolled his hips so that his cock slid in Dean’s grip, making his own friction.  
  
Dean grinned at Sam, heart in his mouth at seeing and hearing Sam that way, so aroused he could barely speak, trying to make Dean give him more. He began jerking Sam fast and rough, no finesse to it. Sam groaned, thrusting into Dean’s touch. He reached blindly for Dean, rubbing his cock through his jeans, following the hard line of it beneath the material.    
  
Dean pushed his hips into Sam’s hand, long fingers grasping him through denim, squeezing and rubbing along his hard length. Sam was writhing against him, open and God, so hot, wanting and needy, open-mouthed and gasping. Dean pulled his shirt up hard enough he heard threads popping. Sam’s stomach was heaving, his nipples tight, aroused buds. Dean leaned over and tongued one of them, unable to resist. Then he bit him.  
  
Sam’s hips rose off the floor, eyes wide, boots scrabbling in the carpet. His cock swelled and pulsed, finally spilling hot and wet all over Dean’s hand. The sight and feel of Sam beneath him, hot skin against his fingers, eyes on Dean’s, tipped Dean over the edge. He saw Sam register it, feeling the tight spasms quaking through Dean’s cock, trapped beneath Sam’s hand.     
  
Dean came down slow, looking at Sam, his flushed face and swollen lips, thinner than he’d been in a while, somehow fragile looking for all his height and strength. He bent and kissed him again, slow and sweet.  
  
“Lilith screwed with my mind,” Sam said when they parted, out of the blue but really not, not after what they’d done together. He shook his head and looked Dean in the eye. “She did worse than that—” he held out a hand, “—and no, I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice dropped, low and soft. “But you being here, Dean—it’s enough. It’ll _be_ enough.” When Dean didn’t answer, Sam’s brow scrunched lower, worried. He added, “Uh, assuming there’s no big freak out from you about this on the horizon.”  
  
Dean let him stew a moment longer. “Why would there be?” he finally asked, looking innocent.  
  
Sam laughed, dimple curving his cheek.  
  
“This floor is horrible,” Dean added, his face wrinkling in distaste.  
  
Sam raised his eyebrows at him, still amused.  
  
Dean moved so that he hung over Sam, leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Doesn’t matter how shitty it is, not with you here.”  
   
The door flew open and a figure stood inside it, black against the bright sun outside. Ruby walked in, dropping into a corner chair covered in a hideous flower pattern. She eyed Sam and Dean on the floor, who stared up at her, sweaty, hair sticking up everywhere, Sam's zipper undone, wet spot on the front of Dean's pants.  
  
“I see you’re doing better than I thought, Sam.” She smirked, crossing her arms. A flash of white bandage on the lower part of her ear showed under her hair for an instant as she settled in. "A _lot_ better." She raised an eyebrow, glancing from Sam to Dean, then back again. “I’m guessing you don’t have popcorn?”

 

**

 

 


End file.
